1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a coin receiving and dispensing apparatus suitably installed at food shops or fast-food restaurants.
2. Description of Related Art
In shops, cashiers these days operate their registers to record the prices of goods that the customers are purchasing, further putting them in the registers according to the denominations of the currency after counting and sorting the paid currency, as well as taking out respective necessary bills and coins to transfer as change.
However, such bothersome monetary reception from and transfer to many customers consumes a relatively large amount of time in association with recording task of sold amounts of money on the register through key typing inputs or bar code inputs, thereby raising problems in that it creates long lines waiting for cashiers when busy. In particular, the problems are inevitable when a person unfamiliar with operating the register is the cashier, thereby resulting in the transfer of improper change to the customer.
In many situations, the currency received from the customers and placed into the registers is used as change. It is therefore difficult to determine the balance in the respective registers during their operation, so that calculation of the proceeds and collection of the money takes a long time when the register is closed or during the cashier""s break.
It is an object of the invention to provide a coin receiving and dispensing apparatus enabling an operator to quickly, unmistakably perform the transfer of currency with customers and to confirm its balance immediately.
The foregoing object is accomplished with a coin receiving and dispensing apparatus including: a plurality of storage portions for storing of respective coins; sorting means for sorting coins inserted from the outside of the apparatus with respect to denominations of the currency of the coin and respectively feeding the sorted coins to said corresponding storage portions; feeding means for feeding wanted coins out of said storage portions in response to a dispensing command; and said sorting means comprising a gauge having a coin guide portion extending over said storage portions, said coin guide portion being formed with a plurality of openings respectively having inner diameters slightly larger than the diameter of a corresponding one of the coins among the various coins at positions corresponding to said respective storage portions, and comprising conveying means for conveying the coins that have reached on said gauge along the coin guide portion.
In accordance with the coin receiving and dispensing apparatus thus constituted, coins inserted through a coin entry opening are sorted by the sorting means with respect to the denominations of the currency and stored at the respective storage portions. When the coins are paid out, the feeding means operates based on a delivery signal sent from the register or the like to feed the coins of the wanted denominations in the necessary number.